This article addresses the issues raised by Chiswell and Lobley concerning our publication ‘Understanding Farm Succession as Socially Constructed Endogenous Cycles’. Our response rebuts Chiswell and Lobley’s criticisms of the article and assembles evidence from the literature to suggest that in a number of countries and regions of Europe, farm succession failure is at crisis levels. We suggest that the primary source of Chiswell and Lobley’s optimism is the international FARMTRANSFERS survey, which they interpret as providing a positive assessment of farm transfer within the family. We present an alternative interpretation of their conclusions. Sociologia Ruralis